


Shotgun Wedding

by Laylah



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:58:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tells her his name is Ladd Russo, and when she asks if that means he's a member of the Russo mafia family, he laughs. He seems pleased that she's heard of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shotgun Wedding

There are so many fucking people in this world who need to die. Ladd's shotgun roars when it goes off, a good satisfying noise he feels in the pit of his stomach, and it jumps in his hand almost like it's alive. Like it's part of him.

But it's no fun to kill them _all_ with the shotgun. It's not personal enough. Especially someplace like this, an illegal casino run by mafia tough guys who think they're dangerous. His uncle asked him to come down here and shut this place down, and Ladd said he'd think about it. He's still thinking about it. He has a little sharp knife that he wears on his belt, that he took from a guy he killed last year. He keeps it nice and sharp, so when the casino's second guard gets too close, yelling about who the fuck he thinks he is, it's just a quick little move, snik, to slit the guy's throat. The blood that gets on his face is still warm. He's going to have to get his uncle to give him money for a new suit.

He should have done this in the evening. There aren't enough guys around to make this really interesting. The third guy tries to shoot him, which at least shows a little spirit, but he's nervous and his aim is shit, and he fails to dodge when Ladd shoots back. That leaves the shotgun empty, but Ladd doesn't bother to reload. This isn't enough of a challenge.

The fourth guy has a knife, which tears a hole in the side of Ladd's jacket. Ladd drops the gun for long enough to choke him to death. Really, they could be trying a lot harder.

In one of the back rooms he can hear someone yelling, through the closed door. "Shut up!" the guy is saying. "You know I hate it when you cry!" That doesn't seem very reasonable. To know that Ladd Russo is coming for you, and start crying -- that's understandable, isn't it? "Wait here," the angry guy says as Ladd walks up to the door. "I'm going to take care of the son of a bitch."

When he jerks the door open Ladd raises his gun, so the end of the barrel is the first thing the angry guy sees. "Going to take care of me, huh?" Ladd says. Angry guy takes a step back and Ladd goes with him, into the room. He wants to see who's crying. "You'll have to have more skills than the rest of your shithead friends." The guy keeps backing up, so Ladd keeps going with him. There's a girl sitting on the floor, her dress falling off one shoulder, crumpled there like angry guy pushed her down. She looks terrified. At least _somebody_ here has sense. "You all thought you were so tough," Ladd says, "but the rest of those guys weren't even fun to kill. How about you? Can you dodge bullets?" The guy looks a little frightened but mostly still angry, like he thinks Ladd doesn't have the right to kill him. Stupid.

Ladd pulls the trigger just to see what will happen. The click of the hammer falling is loud, the only sound except for the girl's little soft sobs -- and then angry guy starts to laugh. "Not so tough now, are you?" he says, reaching into his coat.

"Hold this," Ladd says, and tosses his gun to the girl. Angry guy draws a revolver and Ladd grabs his arm with both hands, shoves him back against the wall with his gun hand up over his head. The revolver goes off when it slams into the wall, and plaster dust sprinkles down from the ceiling. The guy's grip comes loose. Ladd bangs his hand into the wall again. This time there's a crunch, like bones giving way.

"Fuck," angry guy says, and lets go of the gun.

Ladd steps back enough for a right cross. "I hate guys like you," he says. It's a good punch, solid. He jabs left to follow up. "You think you're so tough. You think you can do anything you want." The guy tries to get his hands up to block, but his form is terrible, and Ladd already has him on the ropes. "You walk around acting like you can't be killed, when really, you're not dangerous at all!" Right, right, left, there's blood on his knuckles and if this still isn't a challenge, well, at least it's a relief. "There's nothing that _protects_ you! Nothing that makes you safe! And that attitude of yours pisses me off!"

He's pretty sure the guy hasn't been able to hear him for the last three or four punches at least. His knuckles sting. When he stops punching and takes a step back, the guy slides down the wall slowly into a little useless heap. Ladd sighs. There's almost never anyone really _interesting_ to kill. Well, there's still the girl, at least.

Ladd turns around, and the girl is watching him. That's odd enough -- most of the time when he gets this excited, girls try not to look. But this one is watching him, and her face, well. She has the fear that she should, but there's something else in her eyes, too, something he doesn't recognize. And she's sitting there, patient, with his gun in her lap, and it looks...charming, he decides.

And then she sees him looking down, and holds out his gun for him, butt end first, so the barrel is pointed right below her ribs. If there were any shells left in it -- Ladd reaches out to take the gun back.

"Thank you," the girl says quietly.

"Eh?" Ladd says. He looks down at her, studying her face. "You think if you're polite I won't kill you?"

The girl shakes her head. Peaceful, that's what it is. She looks peaceful. "You were right about Charlie," she says. Ladd looks back over his shoulder at what's left of angry guy. Charlie. Right. "I don't think I'd mind so much if you kill me." There's a tiny bit of emphasis when she says _you_. Does she think flattering him will make him stop?

Ladd crouches on the floor in front of her and reaches out, strokes her face with one hand. He leaves a blood smear on her cheek. "You want me to kill you?" he says. He slides his hand down, wraps it around her throat, and he can feel the beat of her pulse under his fingers. It's steady. Calm.

"It's all right," she says, her voice thrumming against his hand. Her eyes are sweet and sad.

Ladd lets go of her throat and takes her hand instead. "I'm not going to kill you yet," he says. Right now she's too interesting, not like anybody else he's killed so far. She looks -- disappointed? -- when he says that, so he adds, "I'm still going to do it, don't worry. But you deserve to die in better company than this."

She smiles, and he thinks it's wonderful how she can make a smile look grateful and frightened and hopeful all at the same time. "Thank you," she says, and Ladd helps her to her feet.

* *

He tells her his name is Ladd Russo, and when she asks if that means he's a member of the Russo mafia family, he laughs. He seems pleased that she's heard of them. When he brings her back to a hotel downtown, she expects him to make advances then, but he only washes up and changes his clothes -- she takes the opportunity to wash off the smear of Charlie's blood that he left on her cheek -- and then they leave again. He takes her out to dinner and then to a dance club, and it's a good thing she had one of her nicer dresses on today or they might not have even let her in the door. He has a lot more class than the guys she's gone with before this.

It's late by the time they come back to his hotel room again, and Lua's head feels a little fuzzy -- Ladd knew someone at that club who could give them real champagne, even now. Chicago looks beautiful from up here, all glittering lights and new skyscraper buildings. Lua stands at the window and looks out, watching the movement on the sidewalk far below.

"You're so pretty, Lua," Ladd says, as he comes up to stand behind her. He wraps an arm around her waist, pulls her back against him. "And we've had such a lovely day together." His other hand slides up, over her stomach, between her breasts, and curls around her throat. "Shall I kill you now? To end this day gloriously, with your death in my arms?"

Lua watches the people scurry by under the street lights. They don't matter. The city is beautiful, and it doesn't matter, either. And Ladd, behind her, solid and warm -- "If you want to," she says.

"No," Ladd says, "you're right." He pulls away. "You're too lovely, my Lua. I should kill lots more people before I kill you. Can you stand to wait?"

"You'll keep me with you until then?" she asks.

"Of course, of course." Ladd's hands close on her arms, pull her back against him, away from the chill of the glass. "Of course. That way nobody else can kill you first." He kisses her, oddly clumsy, his lips brushing her cheek. "There must be so many men who want to."

Lua smiles faintly. It's true, she supposes. She turns in Ladd's arms, tilts her face up to offer her mouth for a proper kiss. Ladd looks surprised for a moment, and then leans down to kiss her, close-mouthed, bending her over backward so she has to wrap her arms around his neck and trust him to hold her up. He closes his eyes when he kisses.

"Perhaps tomorrow," he tells her afterward. "Tomorrow, or the next day. So we should make sure to be well rested." He turns away, shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it up. "Time for bed, hmm?" he asks, as he pulls at the knot of his tie.

She already agreed to let him kill her without protest, Lua thinks, so objecting to this would be frivolous by comparison. And he is handsome, tall and confident, strong-jawed. He takes off his vest, his shirt, and he has an athlete's broad shoulders. Lua reaches for the buttons of her dress.

Her underthings seem tawdry now, flimsy lace that Charlie liked to see her in but that looks cheap in the face of Ladd Russo's tailored suits and fancy hotel room. Lua hesitates, her dress half off her shoulders, but when Ladd gets into bed -- in his shorts and his undershirt -- he doesn't turn the light out right away. Instead he looks over at her curiously. "What are you waiting for?"

So Lua strips out of all of it -- dress and camisole and bloomers, garter belt and stockings, every stitch she has on. She won't keep secrets from the man who's going to kill her. She won't hide from him.

She's still not expecting the way he's watching her when she looks up -- not leering or anything, the way most men do, but really _watching_, not ashamed of himself at all.

She climbs into bed with him, under the heavy quilt, and he pulls her into his arms. He's warm against her, and solid, muscle plain under her hands. Lua presses close to him, leans up for another kiss, waits for him to push her down onto her back. But he doesn't push her, doesn't make demands, doesn't even kiss her more deeply. Perhaps he's some sort of invert, who likes to kill girls but not fuck them. Lua parts her lips, lets her tongue brush the softness of his mouth.

Ladd's breath hitches, and his cock stirs against her thigh. Not completely an invert, at least. "Do that again," he says, and kisses her harder. This time when Lua opens her mouth, his tongue meets hers, and he's clumsy in this, too, awkward and slow. His cock stirs again, and he pushes against her. "Lua," he whispers. "I want to kill you."

He doesn't know, she's sure of it. He hasn't ever had a woman. She supposes most women would run from him, given the chance. Perhaps it is the only reasonable thing to do.

Certainly it means she doesn't have to offer. He wouldn't know what he was missing, would he?

"You're so soft," he says. He pushes her down now, runs his hand up her side -- pausing for a moment when his palm cups her breast, and then moving on, sliding up to wrap his fingers around her throat. She can feel him push against the veins there, not hard -- not yet -- only enough to make her face flush, to make her blood roar in her ears.

"Ladd," she breathes. She's trembling.

"Don't beg me to stop," he warns her.

Lua shakes her head. She wouldn't do that. He's hard now, against her thigh, his hips rocking faintly, like an afterthought. Was he this aroused when he killed her lover, or is he responding to her in particular? She wraps her arms around him, runs her hands over the broad plane of his back.

Ladd's grip eases, and he looks down into her eyes as though he doesn't understand what she's doing. "You want me to kill you," he says. He makes it sound tender, romantic.

Lua smiles. "You're the most handsome man I've ever seen," she tells him. She reaches down, and he lets her press her hand between them to cup his cock through his shorts.

"Ah, Lua," he says, and pushes against her hand. "Yes, yes, sweet Lua. I want to so much, so much, just like that."

"Like this," Lua says. She lets go of his cock and he grabs her wrist, glares at her -- but he lets her move enough to reach the waistband of his shorts, to hook her fingers inside. "Will you let me take these off?"

"I'm in a good mood," Ladd says, shrugging one shoulder. He rolls off her enough so that she can reach, so she can pull his shorts off. Men's cocks never look as impressive as they seem to believe. They expect awe and Lua gives them the act they're looking for, but that's all.

But Ladd is different. He isn't threatening her with it; why would he, when he can threaten her with his hands, and get what he really wants? So Lua can actually look, without cringing, without him posturing. His cock suits him, thick and hard, a match for his broad hands and his strong jaw. Lua takes it in her hand, and Ladd shudders, and smiles.

"Clever," he murmurs. "You make me feel so good, Lua. So good."

Lua strokes his cock slowly, firmly. It's as thick as her wrist. "Will you fuck me, Ladd?" she says.

"It won't stop me from killing you," he says. His eyes are wary; he thinks she's trying to bargain.

"You can do it at the same time, if you want to," Lua says. She thinks he would enjoy that. She lies back, spreads her legs, opens her arms to draw him down. Ladd shifts on top of her, and he still looks suspicious as he settles into her embrace. Lua guides his cock between her legs, watches the stutter of something like shock across his face as he presses against her cunt. He pushes, and she squeezes her eyes shut. It burns, as his cock slides into her, and she can't help flinching.

"Oh, Lua," Ladd says, low and fierce. "Lua, Lua." He pulls back, thrusts in again, and he slides a little more easily this time but Lua whimpers all the same, filled and aching, his hipbones hard against her thighs. "Am I hurting you?" he asks, breathing the words into her ear. He pushes harder as he asks.

"It's all right," Lua says, holding onto his shoulders and raising her knees to let him deeper. Her voice shakes, and the corners of her eyes sting.

Ladd moans, mouths at her throat, bites her under the jaw, just a quick scrape of his teeth. "It feels like -- like killing you, Lua, sweet Lua, so good to me."

"Yes," Lua whispers. He won't last long, with the way he moves, fucking her in an unpracticed, harsh, entirely selfish rhythm. He doesn't know there is more of a performance he could be asking of her, doesn't demand that she tell him how good his cock feels or how much she needs to be filled with it. He only takes her, crooning in her ear about how soft she is and how easily she would break, and when he comes he laughs, like it makes him giddy. In the aftermath he collapses on top of her at first, then pushes himself up when she struggles for breath.

"Am I crushing you?" he asks. "Crushing the breath out of you?" He smiles. "That won't do," he says. "Not like that. I want to kill you but not like that."

Lua smiles faintly. It _would_ be less than he's capable of. "Thank you," she says. Ladd pulls out, shifts his weight just enough so that he's lying against her side instead of right on top of her. One of his legs settles between hers, pinning her thigh, and his arm rests across her stomach. Her cunt feels bruised, swollen, wet.

"You're so good for me, Lua," Ladd tells her. "You make me feel so calm. So quiet."

"Mmm," Lua says. Ladd has one of her hands trapped, her arm around his shoulders, but she slides the other hand down her body to part the wet curls between her legs and feel how tender, how slick he's left her. When she looks over he's watching, but calmly, not angry or leering or even particularly curious, so she lets her fingers stay there, tracing tiny circles through her folds. Most of the slickness she feels is his come, she thinks, but perhaps not all of it. And he lets her be, gives no suggestions and makes no demands as she relaxes a little more completely against him.

He makes a noise the first time she shivers at the building sensation, a soft wordless croon, and strokes her side. "Pretty Lua," he murmurs. "You look like you're hurting."

Lua nods, and closes her eyes. It does still hurt, a little, touching herself where he's been. Her limbs tremble, and Ladd holds her like he's not sure whether to hold her close or hold her down. It doesn't matter which it is, not really, and she's quiet until the moment when she brings herself to climax, and then -- when that hurts, too, something pulled so tight inside her that it aches -- she lets one faint moan escape her throat.

Ladd kisses her like he could draw the breath from her lungs. "So sweet, Lua," he tells her, looking down into her eyes. "You suffer so prettily." She thinks no other man has ever looked at her the way he does. "Shall I put out the light now?"

"Yes," Lua says, and he does. He falls asleep beside her almost immediately, and Lua listens to his breathing, her heartbeat, the distant sound of traffic in the street below. The word echoes in her head. Yes, she suffers prettily. Yes, she will stay with him. Yes, he will kill her.

Yes.

* *

She's asleep next to him when Ladd wakes up, her arms folded in front of her, her hair fanned across the pillow. Lua. She looks so delicate it's a miracle he hasn't killed her just by _accident_, her skin fair and soft, her bones so fine and so easy to see. Ladd can't remember the last time he saw someone sleep, and certainly not someone who knew he was there. He glares at her. Does she think she's safe, because he didn't kill her last night?

Oh, last night, though. Ladd shivers, thinking of how she trembled under him, those beautiful hurt noises she made when he fucked her. It's not that she thinks she's safe with him -- it's that she doesn't mind. She's willing to let him hurt her, let him kill her, if that's what he wants. Which is fascinating, even if he doesn't understand it.

Unless she's in love with him. Ladd pulls the blankets back and watches her breathing change, the rise and fall of her shoulders, the faint shadows shifting between her ribs. Her eyelids flutter open and she looks up at him -- and no, she doesn't think that she's safe. She has the sweet sad eyes of a creature that knows there's no safe place anywhere. They must be in love.

"Good morning," Ladd says, and Lua smiles at him like a martyr shot full of arrows.

"Good morning, Ladd," she says. He'll kill her on their wedding night, he decides, and he loves her so much that for a moment he wants to tell her. But no, let it wait. It'll be better if she doesn't know.

Instead he says, "You should get up, sleepyhead. We have to go buy you some fancy dresses if you're going to be Ladd Russo's fiancée."

Happiness looks almost as pretty on her as fear.


End file.
